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In order to limit climate warming, CO2 emissions must remain below fixed quota. An evaluation of past emissions suggests that at 2014 emissions rates, the total quota will probably be exhausted within the next 30 years.
The Arctic has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average. A literature synthesis discusses mechanisms how the associated decline in sea ice and snow cover could potentially alter mid-latitude weather, but uncertainties are profound.
The discovery of water in lunar samples in 2008 challenged the notion that the Moon's interior had lost all its volatiles. Since then, analyses of the water concentrations and isotopic compositions in lunar samples taken together suggest that the Moon is heterogeneously wet, which may lend clues to its origin.
The oxygenation of the Earth's deep oceans is often thought to have triggered the evolution of simple animals. A review article proposes that instead, the evolution of animal life set off a series of biogeochemical feedbacks that promoted the oxygenation of the deep sea.
Feedbacks between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate change could affect many ecosystem functions and services. A synthesis of global air temperature data reveals non-uniform rates of climate warming on diurnal and seasonal timescales, and heterogeneous impacts on ecosystem carbon cycling.
